16 Washington Billionaires Are Among World’s Richest: Forbes 2022 List

WASHINGTON — The billionaires of the world are worth a whopping $12.7 trillion— even though their fortunes recently fell by more than $400 billion as sanctions target Russian oligarchs following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the pandemic continues to cause economic difficulties, according to the recently released Forbes World's Billionaires List.

Washington's premier billionaire, Jeff Bezos, actually saw his fortunes decline from about $177 billion in 2021 to $171 billion at present. That said, he and many other billionaires are much better off than they were pre-pandemic: in 2019, Bezos was only worth a mere $131 billion.

For context, the estimated GDP of the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro is about 378.15 billion, per Statista, an area with about 4 million residents.

Though Bezos's fortune took a hit, more than 1,000 billionaires are richer than they were a year ago. And more than 200 people became billionaires over the past year— all while ordinary Americans grapple with record gas prices and rising food costs at the grocery store.

The number of billionaires on this year’s list slipped to 2,668 — 87 fewer than last year.

A total of 16 billionaires on this year’s list hail from Washington, including Bezos, who is the second-richest man in the world after Elon Musk.

Other Washington billionaires on the list include:

• Bill Gates, Microsoft, $129 billion
• Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, $91.4 billion
• MacKenzie Scott, Amazon, $43.6 billion
• Melinda French Gates, Microsoft, $6.2 billion
• Charles Simonyi, Microsoft, $5.8 billion
• Howard Schultz, Starbucks, $4 billion
• Gabe Newell, Valve, $3.9 billion
• James Jannard, Oakley, $2.8 billion
• Craig McCaw, McCaw Cellular, $2.2 billion
• Orion Hindawi, Tanium, $2 billion
• David Hindawi, Tanium, $1.8 billion
• Martin Selig, Real Estate, $1.4 billion
• Bob Muglia, Snowflake, $1.1 billion
• Bruce Nordstrom, Nordstroms, $1 billion
• Glenn Sanford, eXp World Holdings, $1 billion

To compile this year’s list, Forbes used a snapshot of its real-time billionaires rankings by analyzing stock prices and exchange rates for March 11.

The United States still leads the world with 735 billionaires worth a collective $4.7 trillion. This includes Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who tops the World’s Billionaires List for the first time.

Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos fell to the second spot on this year’s list. Bezos, who founded the e-commerce giant in Seattle, stepped down as CEO in 2021 and is now executive chairman of the company.

Meanwhile, France’s Bernard Arnault of LVMH remains at No. 3, followed by Bill Gates of Microsoft at No. 4. Rounding out this year’s top five is Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway.

U.S. billionaires could surrender more wealth should Congress pass a “Billionaire Minimum Tax” proposed in President Joe Biden’s fiscal year 2023 budget proposal.

Under the proposal, households worth more than $100 million would pay at least 20 percent in taxes on both income and “unrealized gains,” or the increase in an unsold investment’s value. Many wealthy people hold onto these investments for decades, meaning they’re never taxed, the administration said.

However, the bill’s prospects seem grim after Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin spoke out against it.

See the full 2022 Forbes Billionaires List.